Samuel Johnson

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

No man was ever great by imitation.

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.

Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar; invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.

I would advise you Sir, to study algebra, if you are not already an adept in it: your head would be less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbors about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow.

I teach that all men are mad.

Wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason.

I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that i am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible….except by getting off his back.

Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.

Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.

Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self-Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

We boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if we have broken any idols, it is through a transfer of idolatry.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

Be an opener of doors.

There is not human being from whom we cannot learn something if we are interested enough to dig deep.

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.

We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a belly-full of words and do not know a thing. The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education.

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.